The present invention relates generally to the field of preventive medicine and therapeutic devices and more particularly to a new device to aid in the prevention and/or therapy of pathologies of the lips.
It is well known that the two fleshy folds that surround the mouth in humans referred to as "lips" are extremely sensitive parts of the human body. The lips are constantly subjected to potentially harmful exposure from elements of the environment including radiation as from the sun, extreme weather conditions, wind, air pollutants and the like and are further susceptible to enumerable pathologies including lip keratoses, chapping, dryness, fissuring, ulcerations, exudations, crusting, exfoliations, inflammation, infections, and edema.
No external portion of the human body is as active as the lips in terms of being closely associated with everyday human activities including oral communication, respiration and eating abilities. The location and structure of the lips result in those human activities being severely hampered, if any of the above abnormalities exist. As a consequence, when the lip must be treated as by the application of medication and/or protective covering or bandaging to the outer surface thereof using present methods it becomes very inconvenient to the patient, if not impractical per se. Further, there is a problem of maintaining the medication and/or protective covering on the effected area. Subconscious tongue probing, effects of saliva, and interaction with the opposing lip are examples of conditions that result in the wearing away of lip medication, preventing the uninterrupted natural healing process and causing constant irritation to the lip.
Heretofore there was no device that one could use to protect and prevent abnormalities from occurring to the lip and in addition be used by itself or in conjunction with medication for therapeutic purposes.